In his eulogy, Bono recalls the first time he met Reed, on the Amnesty International Conspiracy of Hope tour in 1986. He writes of how he and Reed bonded over poetry, specifically James Joyce. The two would go on form a friendship that involved swapping short-stories by Delmore Schwartz and poems by Seamus Heaney.

Bono also revealed that Lou Reed’s Transformer was the album that turned him onto Reed in 1972.

“Myself and my best friend Guggi would sit for hours listening to these street stories, thinking we knew what it was to walk on the wild side. We were 12 and 13,” he said.

While Reed was known by many for being a “wild creature who put songs about heroin in the pop charts,” Bono said he sees him differently.

“This is how I will remember him, a still figure in the eye of a metallic hurricane, an artist pulling strange shapes out of the formless void that is pop culture, a songwriter pulling melodies out of the dissonance of what Yeats called “this filthy modern tide” and, yes, pop’s truly great poker face – with so much comedy dancing around those piercing eyes.”